Nothing Will Be Different
by Tallulah Grammar Songstress
Summary: A short piece from Onishima's POV. Sure, he's bad, but why?


I squint, focus on my watch. 12:00. Midnight. Great. Another day beginning. Like I care.

Well, why should I? It won't be any different from the rest of my life. Pouring with rain, or burning hot. Working up to the small hours until everything blurs. And people looking at me like I'm crazy. And all those smart-ass suit guys, _you're working too hard, you're not handling this correctly, you've lost your perspective._

Perspective! What the hell are they talking about? They're the ones who've lost perspective. They asked me to clear those damn punks off the streets, and when I try, they act like I'm a freak. 

My eyes feel like they've been crusted open, like they've dried out. Can't sleep. Not yet. I take a swallow of coffee without tasting it, and turn back to the paperwork. 

But I can't concentrate. Damn it, thinking too much.

Every damn day same thing happens. I turn up, thinking maybe it'll be different. Maybe I'll actually achieve something here. And every time, nothing. I've tried everything. Tanks, paratroopers, dogs, everything the Rokkakus can give me. And what happens? Each time it ends with some punk kid hightailing it over a wall, or through a billboard, or out of a window, and we're left with the entire population of Tokyo-to laughing at us.

Laughing at me.

Well, I don't damn care. They'll think differently when I finally get those kids, finally stop them slapping their mess over every wall in the city. Because I will. I know I will. 

Won't I?

I can't listen to that last bit. This has got to end, sometime. Got to be we'll do it, I'll do it, I'll get rid of them and then it'll all stop, the sniggering newscasters, the funny looks in the station, and the kids, they won't be striding round this town any more, that's for damn certain.

I know they think I'm crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm trying to solve a problem that this town has. That's all it is. 

They think I should be _liberal. _They think I should pity those punks, hard lives, broken homes, cry for help, blah blah blah. Pity them? What for, exactly? The fact they're getting away with it? The fact they spend their lives sticking a finger up at the world? The fact they're young and fresh-faced and crazy and stupid, just like a teenager should be? Oh, yeah. Yeah. My heart is just fucking breaking for them.

Can't work any more, not at the moment. I'm almost choking on rage, it's like my blood's turned into fire or something, it hurts. I get up – I'm aching all over, I've been sitting way too long – and head to the window, maybe some fresh air'll be good.

And the tag smirks out at me from across the street.

I freeze, and then my heart starts pounding, hard, like it's kicking out at them, kicking out at their skulls, shattering, crushing them to pulp.

God damn it, they put that there so I'd see it. It's the sort of thing they'd do. Because they _know. _They know I hate them. They know I want to take them, take every last one of them and shove them into some dark, hidden cell where they can stay for the rest of their useless, troublemaking lives, no more of their sneers and their bright eyes and the colours on their fingers and their clothes. And they know I can't.

As I admit it, I think – just for a moment – that I'm going to fall, my legs won't take it, but then I grip onto the sill until my knuckles click, and it's okay again. 

I didn't use to think it'd be like this. I used to think – I don't know. I used to think we could actually accomplish something. I used to think being a cop was a good thing to be. Not that it just meant being the loser all the time. 

But it does.

I hear the jokes they make. Not just the rudies themselves. The papers, every crook who passes through this station, the sushi counter people, everyone. A bunch of clowns. Inefficient. Corrupted. Useless. And led by the craziest freak of them all, 'Shorty' Onishima.

_I hate that nickname._

It burns in my mind, every time I hear it, which is every day, because one of them always manages to yell it as they leap over the wall. It's always the same. The stink of paint. The screeching of skates on bricks, or a bar, or a railing. And a voice, not always the same one, of course, girls, boys, but always brash, hard, confident, and always the same lines…

_Better luck next time, Shorty!_

Missed me, Shorty!

Chill out, Shorty!

And the SWAT team or whoever sigh, and shake their heads, but I know what they're really thinking. Sniggering behind their masks. And I want to rip off the masks, and punch that word out of them, and hurt them so bad they can only croak it out through a mess of blood and teeth, and _that'd _stop them saying it…

Stop it. I draw a deep breath, rub my eyes. Get a grip. Come on. Maybe things'll be different today. 

I close my eyes now, trying to picture how it could be, but that doesn't work. All I see is another leaping figure, flying over the rooftops to safety. And I don't hear the Tokyo traffic outside or the voices in the station, just another taunt, flung back in my face like a knife, and I know I'm fooling myself. Things'll never be different. And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.


End file.
